


The Same as Mine

by morganya



Category: Poison & Wine - The Civil Wars (Song)
Genre: Children, Domestic, F/M, Relationship Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 16:55:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3985753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You only know what I want you to/I know everything you don't want me to."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Same as Mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lexigent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexigent/gifts).



They bought the house when she was pregnant with Michael. When they finally moved in, after she had put Carrie to bed, they sat together in the kitchen and laughed until they cried because how had they managed this, how had this happened? For a while, nothing quite seemed real. They moved in slow motion, hazily happy, untouchable.

Now they had a nice house. They had a yard that the kids can play in. They showed up at block parties. They said hello to the neighbors on the way to work. If someone were to look in the windows, they would see a clean house, Carrie and Michael helping to set the table, photographs on the walls; a happy family.

*****

He went to meet Paul for a drink after work. Paul lived down the street and worked on the same floor as he did, which enforced cordiality between them. They went to the bar across from the train station.

"Bella's having a birthday party," Paul said after the beers arrived. "Mar'll email your wife about it, but I just remembered. Bring the kids over."

"We'll swing by the store and get Bella something."

"This is like the fourth birthday party we've had to do in a month. Every kid on the block is having birthday parties all the time."

"At least it's fun for the kids." His phone went off, vibrating on the table. "Hang on, it's my wife. Hey."

"Hey," she said, crackly and distorted through his cheap phone. "Where are you?"

"I'm walking down the street. What's up?"

"Can you pick up orange juice on the way home?"

"Sure."

"Great. See you at home."

"Bye." He put the phone back on the table. Paul was looking at him, mug halfway to his mouth.

"You're walking down the street?"

"What?"

"You told your wife you were walking down the street."

"I did?"

"Yeah," Paul said. He twisted the beer mug on the table. "I knew a guy once who told his wife he was playing basketball with me when he was really with another girl. You doing anything like that?" He laughed, a quick stutter-stop.

"Jesus, no." The word _adultery_ flashed behind his eyes in big black letters and he almost gagged on his beer. "I could never do that to her. I love her."

*****

She got off the phone with her husband and went back to making dinner. He'd said that he was walking down the street but she'd heard glasses clinking in the background, music playing. He might have been in a bar or in a restaurant; she didn't really care to find out.

He was a liar. It was a fact like his eyes were green. She didn't even think he knew about it; he lied like he was exchanging pleasantries at a dinner party. The first few times she'd caught him, he stared at her wide-eyed, as though he had no idea what was coming out of his mouth.

Sometimes she thought that if he were having an affair, it would make things easier.

She put the kids' plates on the table before she got her own. She screwed up the chicken; it looked like a piece of rubber. The carrots were raggedy around the edges. She wouldn't blame the kids for not eating it.

She'd raised polite children who didn't mention that their mother had failed at feeding them. Michael just said, "Carrots are orange," before settling into his usual daydream, and Carrie focused on holding her fork.

She and her husband had good kids. At night she lay awake hoping against hope that they were too busy with their own lives and their own struggles to notice their parents as anything more than caregivers. She always feared that they could sense things even if they couldn't name them, feel the cracks in the house more than she could.

"Mom?" Carrie asked. "Do wolves eat chicken?"

"Yes," she said. "They eat chicken and rabbits and things that live out in the world."

"Red Riding Hood's grandma got eaten by a wolf."

"That's right," she said. "Michael, eat your carrots, baby."

Michael roused himself long enough to put a piece of carrot in his mouth. Carrie said, "If I saw a wolf, would I get eaten?"

"There aren't any wolves around here, Carebear."

"No, if me and Michael went outside and there was a forest so we went there, and we saw a wolf there."

"Well, Carrie, if you and Michael went outside and a forest full of wolves had sprouted up overnight, then I hope you'd stay away from any wild things. You remember how Daddy and I told you about not going up to animals you don't know."

"If I got eaten by the wolf," Carrie said contemplatively, "Daddy would come, and he'd get me out of the wolf's belly. Then that'd be all right."

"Yes," she said. "Daddy will always be there for you."

Her husband came home in time to give the kids their bath and put them to bed. Afterwards he met her in the kitchen and asked, "So how'd today go?"

"Carrie told me you'd save her from a wolf if she got eaten."

"That's right. Just doing my job." He leaned around her and pressed cold lips against her temple; she forced herself not to shy away. "You tired?"

"Yeah."

"I'll go work on the computer for a while. Let you get some sleep."

"Sure," she said. "See you in the morning."

*****

He met her in college, when he was pre-law and she was pre-med. As far as he was concerned, his whole life had been spent heading in a straight line towards her, only he hadn't known about it. Once he'd met her, everything else ended.

Marriage was inevitable; he proposed the summer before graduation. They married before he had even passed the bar, and then she got pregnant with Carrie, unexpectedly, just after he passed. She had to be on bed rest after the second month, and it meant she had to put off medical school for a while. He made sure to work extra hard to keep this brand new family going.

Then they had Carrie, and Michael soon after, and perhaps it wasn't the future they'd wanted when they talked about it but he was sure that it was perfect. He put in long hours at the firm while she worked mothers' hours as a receptionist and between the two of them the mortgage got paid. The kids were healthy, there was a good school in the area, their bills were paid; surely that was enough to make anyone happy.

*****

She always pretended to be asleep when he came to bed. One part of her always feared that he'd notice the pretense – he'd see something in the curve of her back or hear a difference in her breathing or something – and the other part of her wished he would notice and not care. Years ago he used to curl up against her back, a warm, sweet-smelling weight on her, and she'd feel safe and protected.

Now every night she'd lie awake in a deadly quiet house, listing her husband's good points to herself. He was a good father. When she was pregnant with Carrie, she was constantly sick and terrified that she'd lose the baby if she so much as rolled over; he'd stroke her hair and tell her everything was going to be all right until she believed him. He put in long hours at work and came home to give the kids their bath and read them a story before bedtime. He picked up after himself. He remembered important dates, sent red roses to the office on her birthday. He was still the handsomest man in the world.

They hadn't made love in eight months.

It might have been even longer than eight months, but one day she was leaving work and she realized that it had already been two months, and then she couldn't stop herself from counting the days. She counted every time he reached for her in the middle of the night and she'd shrug him off, and she counted every time he didn't reach for her, and she counted every time she silently dug her nails into her palms, hoping he wouldn't reach for her.

She was pretty sure this meant the end of them. She was pretty sure this wasn't a marriage any more. She needed to do something about it, take action, and either they'd be okay or they would just move on. But what she was doing was lying there wondering what would happen to her children and she couldn't move an inch.

*****

Sometimes he looked over at her while her attention was elsewhere, when she was helping the kids get dressed or doing the dishes or just coming in the door. He had seen her every way over the years – happy and tearful and angry and languid and laughing – but even now it seemed to him that there were still parts of her he didn't know and maybe he never would.

She was always the most beautiful woman in the world.

*****

She went through the bills on Saturday after she'd dropped the kids off. He was going in and out of the living room, working on something she hadn't asked about.

She did the usual routine when she got to the phone bill, checking the times and numbers. When he came in the living room for the fourth time, because he was there, she asked, "Was something up with your mother? You called her like five times."

He said, "That was just for her birthday. She's fine."

"Her birthday isn't for three months."

He stared blankly at her, as if she was the crazy one, and she said in a rush of irritation, "I mean, if you're going to lie, you could at least put some effort into it."

"I wasn't lying."

"You are. You don't call your mother for her birthday three months in advance. Don't treat me like I'm stupid. You always do this."

"Hey. When did I ever say you were stupid? That has nothing to do with anything."

"You don't _say_ it. You don't say anything. You just pretend everything's okay, and it's not okay, it's not."

She was still sitting on the couch, writing checks to pay the bills even though her hand was shaking. He was still standing in the doorway. Maybe if she jumped out of her body and looked down from the ceiling, she'd see a calm, everyday scene, the both of them talking in normal voices and utterly uninvolved.

"You're not making a lot of sense right now," he said.

"I mean, do you think I even care if you call your mom five times or ten times or a hundred times? Do you think the budget can't handle it? Maybe I should go back to school, I can bring in more money that way."

"The money's fine. We both make enough to get by."

"My paycheck doesn't cover shit. I thought I'd have a practice by now, you know? I'd be in the hospital seeing patients. Instead I'm stuck behind a desk making someone else's fucking appointments and –"

"But we still manage to get along," he said. "I go to work, you go to work, the kids get picked up, we're fine."

"Except we haven't had sex for almost a year. Is that fine too?"

He checked out then. She saw something behind his eyes shut down, and it infuriated her. She said, "Why can't you just say things? Why can't you say what we both know? I can't come home and act like everything is great anymore."

"But you _don't_. That's what's happening. I mean, maybe you love me, but you don't like me all that much. The kids are happier to see me than you are."

"I know. I know. I know. I just don't know if I can fix it. I don't know if we have anything left to fix."

That scared him, she could tell. He came and sat across from her. "Wait. Honey – what do you mean, you don't know if we have anything left?"

"If you had the choice," she said, "if I gave you the choice, would you still marry me?"

He looked at her. He looked away. He didn't meet her eyes again.

"That's it, isn't it?" she said. "That's exactly it."

Her hands were numb. She put the pen on the table and watched it roll away from her. Somehow she wasn't frightened now; she was only waiting, silent and prepared.

*****

She hadn't moved from her place on the couch. She was waiting for an answer from him and he couldn't give it. Maybe there was a lot of things he couldn't give her.

He stood up and she didn't make a move to stop him. He walked out of the room, out the door, into the yard. The sun was out and prickling the back of his neck.

He thought about the house behind him, all its rooms and cracks and dents. Maybe in some real estate guide, it'd look perfect, bright and shining and welcoming. When he closed his eyes, all he saw was the frame, stripped of furniture and lights, an empty box that he could never fill.


End file.
